I gathered up my nerve. “I’ve really enjoyed talking to you like this. Maybe we could do it some more. On days when your grandfather hasn’t died, I mean. And if you want to talk about the funny things the babies did, or anything.” I knew I was babbling, and I was trying hard not to sound threatening, or too eager. I knew from Marsilia that Thetis always had plenty of men buzzing around, and women too. It would have been more surprising if she didn’t, looking like that.

She looked wary and took her hand off my arm. “Aren’t you married?”

“No?” I was puzzled. Who could she think I was married to? I’d never really looked at anyone else, they all seemed to be little ripples compared to the tidal wave that was Thetis. I’d messed about with boys when I’d been a boy myself, and I volunteered at every Festival of Hera, but that was the extent of my experience. “And anyway, I didn’t mean it like that—or not only like that. I didn’t mean anything I couldn’t have meant if I had happened to be married. But I’m not.”

“But I thought you were married! I always see you with children?” She sounded puzzled. “Like down at the dock earlier.”

“Camilla is Aelia and Leonidas’s daughter,” I said. “I was wondering who you thought I’d married.”

“And I had sort of wondered who you did marry. But I don’t see you very often, and whenever I did you seemed to have little children with you, so I thought…”

“Aelia and Leonidas died at sea, five years ago. Camilla is eight, and Little Dion, Di, is six. We always knew them and loved them, and so Dion and I look out for them, when they’re free and we are, and we do all tend to be together having fun at festivals and that kind of thing. So I see why you would have seen them with me.”

“Yes, I do see,” she said. “But Jason—”

I interrupted her while I still had the courage. “I feel about twelve years old saying this, but let me say it. I really like you. I can’t say I don’t find you attractive. I’m not a stone. But I really did mean that I enjoyed talking, and with what you were saying about talking to Pytheas about the babies I thought maybe you wanted somebody you could talk to like that, probably more than you want admirers, which you can’t possibly be lacking.”

“I’ve enjoyed talking to you too, and I’d certainly like to do it again,” she said, and she kissed my cheek.